David Mitchell interview: ‘I do find myself on the same side as some terrible people’

After six years of writing a weekly Observer column – now anthologised in a new book – David Mitchell answers our questions about finding ideas, talking shop with his wife and saying farewell to Peep Show

In your new book, you say you started writing regularly for the Observer – in late 2008 – at the dawn of a new era. What has defined it?It was when the credit crunch suddenly became frightening. People had talked about it for months before and there was a vague sense we were going into an economic downturn, but that autumn – and it was totally coincidental – was when everything seemed potentially apocalyptic. Reading through a lot of the things I ended up writing about in the aftermath, other than the thing itself, it really changed our national mood. It finished off nearly 20 years of general optimism: a feeling that maybe everything genuinely is properly better now.

For example?I thought it was very interesting that Sachsgate coincided so precisely with the credit crunch. We – the culture – desperately needed to lash out and Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross were convenient victims for that. Because looking back, it got ludicrously out of proportion for what it was. It should have been a page-four story one day.

But on the plus side, an unbeatable time to be a newspaper columnist then?Certainly there’s a lot to get irritated by. And increasingly what I get irritated by is other people’s irritation at each other. That the anger is everywhere. If you can get yourself worked up about something, the words come easily and it’s easier to amuse, so I certainly profit from it.

How happy are you to stick your head above the parapet? Being a columnist can be an exposed, lonely spot...Starting out, it didn’t feel like that at all. I was just blithely banging out opinions without bothering with many qualifying phrases. But I’ve been ground down a bit. I never read the comments on the website any more, but other people read them and tell you about them. The presence of that community of commenters and the attitude that the Guardian website takes – which is that that’s as valid almost as the initial contribution that they’ve commissioned – is, I think, very dangerous to interesting writing.

Does this connect to your theory about the new era? We need to lash out? What you have to tell yourself to remain sane is that the tenor of the readers’ average reaction is different to the tenor of the average commenter’s. But it’s a guess. You haven’t got any evidence for that. It’s just a hope that, if you were really as shit as people say you are, you would be fired. But you’ve only got that general belief in the goodness of human nature and your continued employment as evidence that you are not absolutely loathsome. And it does make it harder to stick your neck out and write an arresting opinion and a clear contribution to debate. Yeah, it does feel a bit lonely sometimes.

A few times your column has become a story in its own right, notably one about press freedom that led to a public exchange with Steve Coogan. Do you stand by what you wrote?The press issue I found fraught, because I had people I respected and admired who were sincerely thinking what I was asserting was nonsense. And I do find myself on the same side as some terrible people. That’s an extremely uncomfortable position to be in. I read that column back several times, and I think I still agree with it, but I’m full of doubt. I wouldn’t know what to write about the subject now.

Is that why it isn’t included in the anthology?No, basically I read through all of my columns and crudely gave them a mark out of 10. So I read that one again and thought it wasn’t the funniest thing I’d written. I suppose, if I’m honest, I was relieved I didn’t think it was the funniest thing I’d written. I set out, in my career, primarily to make people laugh. Occasionally I make a point, but I don’t think I’m necessarily right about things and I found the response to that very disquieting.

How many 10 out of 10s did you score yourself looking over your old columns?Oh, I certainly didn’t give anything 10 out of 10. I don’t think I gave anything less than five or more than eight. So I wasted the range – it’s basically marks out of three – and then I started using decimal points: “Ooh, I think that’s slightly better than that one, so that’s a 7.2 as opposed to a 7.1.”

‘When she’s got an idea, she turns it into a column in what seems to me like seconds’… David Mitchell married fellow Observer Columnist Victoria Coren in 2012.

Has writing a weekly column been harder than you thought it would be?In most weeks, it’s the hardest work. When I’m filming something intensively, that’s very long days, but if I’m writing sketches or going on panel shows, then the column is the big essay crisis of the week. And I know that if I stopped doing it, it would be a difficult horse to get back on. I can do it at the moment, even though every week my mind is a perfect, unbroken blank. But currently – as of yesterday – I haven’t had a week where I couldn’t find anything. So I’ll keep going.

In 2012, you married fellow Observer columnist Victoria Coren. Is there much shop talk in the Coren Mitchell household?We always talk about our columns, apart from anything else because practically speaking we can’t file on the same subject. She has been writing a column since she was a child and is much better than me, so as well as being very funny she’s incredibly adept at it. When she’s got an idea, she turns it into a column in what seems to me like seconds, while I’m going to and from the kettle.

Your personal situation has changed a lot since you started writing the column: in 2008, you were single, living with a flatmate; now you are married and you’ve turned 40. Are these new circumstances reflected in your writing?Well, my personal situation could hardly have changed more. I’m much happier – that’s the word: I’m a much happier person than when I started writing them. I don’t think that’s changed my column-writing as much as you might expect, but I’m probably more relaxed about writing more whimsical, comic columns now rather than feeling I need to have my say on something of global significance. And that confidence might have come from feeling more personally confident and happy and less angry.

Is there always the concern that with happiness you can lose an edge?Definitely, it occurred to me, both before and after I got together with Victoria. I don’t think I write worse because of being happy, but if I do, it’s certainly a price worth paying. I don’t know what sort of weird masochist you’d have to be to go, “Actually, no, I’m going to plunge myself back into misery because it gives my material its edge.” If being miserable helps your material that is a scant silver lining indeed for a bleak existence.

You’ve taken the brave decision before bringing out a book…That sounds quite worrying.

I was going to say, “of laying into Amazon recently”. Is that a risky strategy?I was asked to give a keynote speech to the Booksellers Association and I like to please a crowd. And you can’t really say anything particularly nice about Amazon’s tax arrangements and business model unless you happen to be a shareholder, which I’m not. But I also figured, what are they are going to do? Their position is so unassailably massive and terrifying, they don’t need to flick every little midge who is annoying them.

What would you like to do next?I’d basically just like to do more of the same: more comic acting, more writing and sketches, more writing hopefully funny things for newspapers. I’m very happy with the balance of my job. Which is slightly odd – you are supposed to want something you don’t have – but I like the balance of things.

This month it was announced that Peep Show will have a final series next year. Does that sadden you?Yes, I’m sad it’s coming to an end, but it has to, really, because the premise won’t sustain another 10 years. The notion of two people in their 20s living together is an idea a lot of people can get their heads round. If they continue to do it in their 40s that doesn’t seem plausible. So there will be a lump in my throat, but at the same time it seems like a good and dignified way for it to end.

With your column, do you ever worry the well will run dry?Every week. Twenty-four hours ago today, I was thinking almost precisely: “The well has run dry.” Then I took a third look at the story about champagne glasses and thought, “Maybe that will do.”